Bruce Conner - BREAKAWAY - Art + Music - MOCAtv
Dennis Hopper has described the experience of seeing Bruce Conner's A MOVIE (1958) like lifting the veil from his eyes, an associative blur of images that would go on to influence the infamous acid trip scene in his film Easy Rider. Years later, Hopper recalls, he and Dean Stockwell held the lights for Conner as he filmed Toni Basil dancing for BREAKAWAY (1966), the short film set to her song of the same name. A rare example of a Bruce Conner musical film containing all original photography, what makes the film unquestionably Conner is his frenetic editing and the evanescence of his subject, a spirit flickering in celluloid. The flashes of figure would reappear in Conner's sculptural photograms such as "Sound of Two Hand Angel" (1974).
Interviews: Toni Basil, Bruce Jenkins.
Audio: Dennis Hopper Recording Courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archive.